Investigation Of Marine Antifouling Coatings Based On Silicones

In recent years, people pay more attention on the ecological safety, environment protection problems. Herein, more researches were focused on the non-toxic antifouling coatings. Considering the actual state of the technology on antifouling coating in China, a series of antifouling based on silicone polymers were investigated in this thesis.The components of antifouling paint, such as, binder, curing agent, pigment and additive were considered as the influence factors on the properties of the antifouling coatings. A silicone elastomer or an intermixture of the silicone elastomer and silicone oil was selected as a binder. BYK-3700, DY-502 and KH-570 were additives. CaCO3, BaSO4, ZnO, Al2O3, nano-TiO2 and nano-SiO2 were used as pigments. It was investigated that the influence of the content of the binder, curing agent, pigment and the type of the additives on the mechanical properties (pencil hardness, adhesive, flexibility, impact resistance, tensile strength, elastic modulus and elongation), surface characteristics (contact angle, surface free energy, friction factor, roughness and morphology), water absorption rate and dissolution ratio of coatings in seawater. The results showed that the type and the content of the binder does not influence the mechanical properties, roughness, water absorption rate and dissolution ratio of coatings in seawater. Fouling index of R coatings increases with the increase of the silicone elastomer, the values of fouling index of R coatings are lower than that of the same type antifouling coatings found in references. There is no influence on every performance of the studied coatings from the content of curing agent. However, the type and content of the pigments studied in this paper effect obviously the various properties except the flexibility and impact resistance of the coatings. It is important that water contact angle, pencil hardness, adhesive, elastic modulus and roughness, all of them increase with the content of the pigment. It is the same for fouling index of the coating. But the static friction factor of the coating decreases with the augment of the content of the pigments.